first night in crate

Brox spent the first night in his cage after nere 2 weeks of sleeping on the bed,he cried for abit at the start and then another time in the middle of the night and then at 6am for his dinner.

He clearly would rather sleep in the bed with us and think i made the mistake of bringing his cage into the bedroom,how long does it normally take average for a dog to stop crying about having to sleep in his cage,its quite distressing hearing him cry.

you just have to be tough if this is the way you want it to be , we had Tommy and Tilly in crates from day 1 but it was only ever a temporary thing until their toilet training was pretty good so they could have the run of the house and now they both sleep in the bed with us.
It varies how long they take , maybe a few nights , maybe a week or 2 but one thing is for certain , if you go to him when he cries then it will lengthen the process.
Tommy was terrible and we made this mistake but eventually bringing him into our room he settled much quicker in the end.
Set your alarm to let him out for a toilet a couple of times through the night so you wake him up and set the rules , if you let him out when he cries then he is calling the shots. As his bladder control gets better you can reduce this to a last thing at night , then first thing in the morning thing.
The big decision now for you is what you want to do in the future , is the crate in the bedroom a permanent thing or just temporary , do you want him in his crate downstairs long term ?? If so then you just have to be hard and start now or you will have to go through it all again when you move him.
As I said it was never an issue to us as the crate was never to be permanent so I can only advise on what we had planned

Unfortunately I can't offer much advice on the crate as I have never used one. When Chiquito first came home he stayed in the bathroom for a week until he managed to make it through the night with out toileting, then he went into my bed.

He cried for a couple of nights in the bathroom - it was hard to listen to, however as said above, you have to be a little tough or you will just be encouraging it. It took two nights to settle without lots of crying - though he was only put in there when everyone was going to bed and he was quite sleepy anyway.

Darcy cried for the 1st 3 nights and she was a little baby too, she then only cried to wake up at 6am she was really good from the start, but it's hard to hear them cry & not go In to them, I'm sure it won't last long, & he's in your room so he should settle down in a couple of days.

Sound advice from Dave. I would just add that we initially hid treats in his bedding for Bacchus to find when he went to his crate, thereby making it an exciting place to go. Even now at 10 months he gets his kong with some sweet potato/peanut butter mix in it at bed time. We choose not to have him in our room at night but that's a personal thing and as he has never known anything different so his crate is his bed and he loves it.

The crate is for night times and anytime i need to leave the house,i dont want him to destroy the house with his teeth,id rather him sleep on the sofa at night times like i did my old staffy but i cant trust him right now,its a good size cage with plenty of room with his toys etc in it so i dont feel like im being mean to him.

I moved the crate in to the bedroom instead of living room or kitchen because i thought it would help him settle inquicker but im also worried he is in his cage looking at our bed thinking 'thats where im suppose to sleep' and its so hard hearing im cry,im the biggest softy when it comes to staffys most of the time i dont see them as dogs but rather like a 4 legged human.

Im just going to have to tough it out,his crate is a really good one with an extreamly comfortable memory foam mattress to sleep on.

its funny how emotionaly attached you get with dogs,i like dogs more than humans haha

Archie was like this as well, he still does it a bit but not as much

You just have to put up with it until he settles, I'm afraid. Some of the crying might be for the toilet or food though. Loki will cry if no-one's come to him by 8 or 9am because he's hungry

It is hard to hear them cry but crate training is one of the best things you'll ever do, so keep at it

thanks for the advice guys,i wont feel as quilty when i hear him feeling sorry for himself lol

staffyforever wrote:thanks for the advice guys,i wont feel as quilty when i hear him feeling sorry for himself lol

Oh you'll still feel guilty, that's his intention. But as the others say, as long as he's well and not needing to go, just tough it out. For the first couple of months I was getting up at 3am to take him out to the garden BEFORE he started to cry ( that way, pre-empting the crying, he didn't get the idea that we would come when he wanted ) then back to bed until 7.